Six fights announced for Noche UFC 4, headlined by Moreno and Grasso returns
The September 12 card at Desert Diamond Arena builds around two former Mexican champions bouncing back from tough recent stretches. Zuffa Boxing has Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn the same night, meaning TKO Group is running major MMA and boxing cards in parallel.
Brandon Moreno defeats Kai Kara-France of New Zealand in the interim UFC flyweight championship fight during the UFC 277 event at American Airlines Center on July 30, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
The UFC has confirmed six bouts for Noche UFC 4 on September 12 at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. The lineup, first revealed during the UFC Oklahoma City broadcast on July 18 and expanded via a Cageside Press update on July 20, is built around two of the most recognisable names in Mexican mixed martial arts.
Alexa Grasso headlines the announced portion of the card against France’s Manon Fiorot in a matchup between a former women’s flyweight champion and one of the division’s most persistent contenders. Grasso enters at 17-5-1, coming off a first-round knockout of Maycee Barber on March 28, 2026, her sharpest finish in years and the kind of result that puts her back in the title conversation. Fiorot has spent the past several years building one of the more consistent résumés in the weight class, coming off a stoppage of Jasmine Jasudavicius, and the winner is likely to sit within one fight of a title shot. Fiorot is designed, on paper, to make Grasso’s boxing work in tight spaces, and the fight is expected to double as a title eliminator depending on how the belt picture settles between now and September.
Brandon Moreno also returns, drawing TUF 33 winner Joseph Morales at flyweight. Moreno’s ledger sits at 23-10-2, and he is on a two-fight skid after a unanimous decision loss to Lone’er Kavanagh at UFC Fight Night in Mexico City on February 28, following his previous loss to Tatsuro Taira at UFC 323 on December 6, 2025. A win over a Contender-graduate opponent is the script the UFC has written for him. Losing it would complicate things. Morales, coming off a first-round guillotine submission of Matt Schnell in his last outing, is being handed the biggest platform of his career. Winning TUF 33 got him the contract. Drawing Moreno on Noche UFC gets him the audience. Flyweight has thinned out at the top with recent title turnover, and a live underdog performance against a former champion tends to be remembered by matchmakers.
The heavyweight slot goes to Curtis Blaydes vs. Waldo Cortes-Acosta, a wrestling-versus-striking pairing that tends to answer ranking questions quickly at 265. Blaydes has been a top-five fixture for most of the last five years. Cortes-Acosta, the former professional boxer out of the Dominican Republic, has been climbing steadily and represents the kind of test that either validates or resets the pecking order behind the belt.
The middleweight slot pairs Kelvin Gastelum with Yousri Belgaroui. Gastelum, a former title challenger with deep roots in the Arizona fight scene, remains one of the more marketable Mexican-American names on the roster. Belgaroui, a Dutch-Moroccan striker with a background on the European circuit, is the fresher body and the less familiar name to North American audiences. He also stands six-foot-five to Gastelum’s five-nine, a physical mismatch that carries its own storyline into the buildup.
The flyweight portion of the card fills out with two additional bouts. Tim Elliott meets Edgar Chairez in a stylistic clash between a veteran and a rising Mexican contender. JJ Aldrich takes on Regina Tarin, a matchup with real implications for the women’s flyweight prospect landscape. Both fights lean into the promotion’s positioning of Noche UFC as a showcase for Mexican, Mexican-American, and Latin American fighters.
The main event has not yet been revealed. The UFC is expected to announce the headliner in the coming week. Given the promotional identity of the event and its September 15 proximity to Mexican Independence Day, the headliner will almost certainly feature a Mexican or Mexican-heritage fighter in a marquee position. Whether that means a title fight, a contender bout, or a legacy matchup remains open.
The scheduling is the other story. September 12 is also the date for Zuffa Boxing’s Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn card in Las Vegas, meaning TKO Group’s MMA and boxing arms are running major events on the same night. Whether that is a coordinated cross-promotional play or a calendar collision the company is willing to absorb has not been publicly detailed by executives. Either way, streamers, pay-per-view buyers, and casual fans get asked to pick a lane. This is the second consecutive year TKO has counter-programmed itself over Mexican Independence Day weekend. Noche UFC 3 last year overlapped with the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford boxing superfight.
Noche UFC has become a fixture on the promotion’s calendar since its 2023 debut, timed to Mexican Independence Day weekend. Prior editions leaned on Grasso, Moreno, and Yair Rodriguez as the anchors, and the 2026 build is following the same template. That is a business choice as much as a booking one. The promotion has never fully replaced its bankable Spanish-language draws, and until it does, September belongs to them.
Desert Diamond Arena, which seats roughly 19,000 for concert configurations, has hosted UFC events in the past and offers a market with a substantial Latino fan base within driving distance of both Phoenix and the broader Southwest corridor. The card is expected to fill it.
For Moreno and Grasso, September 12 is an opportunity to reassert relevance in divisions that have continued to evolve in their absence from championship contention. For the UFC, it is the anchoring event of a weekend the promotion has increasingly treated as a fixed point on its calendar.
